Editor,
This letter is in response to Andrew Price's column in Tuesday's Daily Lobo.
It is time to burst Price's bubble. This is America, the land of shoot first and ask later. Americans murder each other out of hatred, jealousy, greed and boredom. After Sept. 11, 2001, Americans murdered other Americans just because they thought those Americans were Muslims. Honestly, where in America is it taboo for an 8-year-old to hit another 8-year-old? In the city where I grew up, we use to pound on each other regularly, girls included. America is a violent nation. Wipe the fairy dust out of your eyes.
As for freedom and democracy, they are not gifts. They are lessons - hard lessons. People must be taught how to be free, otherwise they become victims of callous manipulators who rewrite history to suit their own agendas. In a democracy, there is a constant struggle between the rights of the people and the rights of the government. People must be taught to understand this struggle because mistakes are made, people get hurt, but somehow a tenuous balance is achieved. It is the balance between the people and the government that makes democracy work. Tip the scales one way or the other, and we fall into chaos or tyranny.
The balancing act never ends. After more than 200 years of freedom and democracy behind us, America struggles, still learning the lessons of freedom and democracy. Military conquest has never spread the seeds of freedom. Conquest kills freedom. Conquest kills democracy.
Enlightened people do not play the blame game like Price. They do not cling to dominance or servitude. They live and let live. They give up all the small and petty things in this world for something larger and grander than you or I could ever imagine.
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You are right about one thing: Nations like ours have disappeared. They have disappeared through irresponsible acts of war and the belief that their way of life is the only way to live.
Cynthia Winland
UNM student
